1. Field
Example embodiments relate to communication systems, for example a method and apparatus for receiving and transmitting data including a communication module and a memory.
2. Description of the Related Art
Communication systems are increasingly interested in ultrahigh-speed radio communication technologies capable of exchanging a large amount of data between electronic devices. Ultra-wide band (UWB) technology may be considered an ultrahigh-speed radio technology. UWB technology may be regarded as an innovative radio communication mode advantageous to digital home-network infrastructures because of the convenience offered to users operating digital apparatuses and household appliances.
A UWB system may enable ultrahigh-speed data transmission of several hundreds Mbps in a close distance of around 10 meters with a wide frequency band over approximately 500 MHz. Also, UWB technology may have the capability of providing a low output without interference from traditional radio-wave subscribers. Due to these characteristics, the UWB system may be able to wirelessly transmit large-scale data of several hundreds Mbps in a relatively short period of time between electronic devices, such as personal computers and peripheral apparatuses (e.g., printers), between household appliances, or between any similar office and home electronic devices.
Similar to UWB technology, Bluetooth is a commercial local-area communication technology, which may be used by mobile phones or headsets. The Bluetooth system may enable electronic apparatuses to locally communicate with each other, without wire connections, within approximately 10 meters at the data rate of 1 Mbps, for example. In contrast to Bluetooth technology, a UWB system may utilize a higher data transmission rate. For instance, the UWB system may be faster than the current Bluetooth system by approximately 100˜200 times in data transmission rate. For example, the difference of data rates between UWB technology and the current Bluetooth system, may allow transmitting a movie file, which has a running time of 2 hours, from a mobile phone to another mobile phone within approximately 10 meters in around 10 seconds. Furthermore, UWB technologies make it possible to transmit motion pictures taken by a camcorder or digital video camera to a television or personal computer, or transfer large amounts of information between mobile phones. By installing a UWB chip at a USB port of a personal computer, it may be possible to exchange data without connecting a mobile storage to the personal computer via a wire or other physical connections.
The UWB system may be expected to be a core technology for digital home networks because of its low power, ultra-broad band, and ultrahigh fast transmission rate. Furthermore, because UWB technology may be wireless, electric cables and wires may be no longer needed for transmitting large amounts of data between electrical devices. For instance, the UWB system may allow a printer to accept a large amount of data from a personal computer or a home-network system (e.g., home gateway) with a high data rate without the need for electric cables, wires, or other physical connections.
Currently, efforts for developing and improving UWB technologies appear to be accelerating in the United States. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has allowed UWB technology to be commercially available under certain conditions. The FCC defines the UWB system as a communication mode occupying a frequency bandwidth over 500 MHz or 20% of a center frequency. The bandwidth of a UWB system may be −10 dB, which may be different from other communication modes that may be −3 dB. Moreover, a UWB system with a single band may be able to transmit data by relatively short baseband pulses of several nanoseconds without carrier waves. As compared to traditional narrowband communication modes, data may be transmitted by loading baseband signals onto carrier waves. UWB pulses oscillating with several nanoseconds in time may operate in a broadband over several GHz of frequency spectrum, for example. Therefore, as compared to traditional narrowband radio communication techniques, a UWB system may have a remarkable wideband frequency, and the capabilities of transmitting large-scale, high frequency data.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a conventional UWB system 100. Referring to FIG. 1, the UWB system 100 may include a plurality of masters 110 and 120, a slave 130, and a data bus 101. The plurality of masters may include a central processing unit (CPU) 110, and a UWB Module 120. The slave may include a system memory 130. In the UWB system 100, the CPU 110 and the UWB Module 120 may be accessing the slave (system memory) 130 at the same time. For that reason, the UWB system 100 may include a bus arbiter (not shown) for allocating one of the CPU 110 and the UWB Module 120 priority to use the data bus 101. As a result, a bottleneck of data waiting to be transferred occurs within the UWB system 100, which may make the data transmission rate irregular.